Balingen – Rottweil railway line

Balingen (Württ) -Rottweil
Route number (DB) :	4634
Course book section (DB) :	769
Route length:	29.0 km; in operation: 12.9 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Tübingen 0.0 Balingen (Württ) 1.1 Balingen south 1.8 to Sigmaringen 2.6 Endingen (Württ) 2.8 Junction for heating oil storage company Amling 4.6 Erzingen (Württ) 4.7 Erzingen (Württ) 4.9 Junction junkyard 8.4 to the Dotternhausen substation 8.6 Dotternhausen- Dormettingen 8.8 Rail loading of the Holcim Dotternhausen plant 9.0 Passing under the 10.5 Schömberg reservoir 11.4 Schischemtalsperre (83 m) 12.9 Schömberg (b Balingen) to the former Schömberg concentration camp 15.8 Schörzingen Connection of an oil shale plant 17.8 Eckerwald 21.3 Wave things Primtal Viaduct (145 m) Prim Gäubahn and Rottweil – Villingen railway line 27.1 Rottweil old town Neckar 29.0 Rottweil Gäubahn to Stuttgart

The Balingen – Rottweil line was a 29.0 kilometer long standard gauge branch line in Baden-Württemberg . Today it only exists in the Balingen – Schömberg section and is known as the Zollernalbbahn (ZAB) 3 .

history

The Rottweil train station

In accordance with the wishes of influential Rottweiler citizens, the Kingdom of Württemberg decided by law of August 19, 1907 to build the railway line. The construction work was carried out by local craft shops and companies.

The first half from Balingen to Schömberg was put into operation on October 25, 1911 by the Royal Württemberg State Railways . The second half from Schömberg to Rottweil was opened by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1928 .

In June 1909, the Württemberg state parliament proposed to connect the Heubergbahn , which was still to be built , to the Balingen – Rottweil railway line in Schörzingen instead of the Gäubahn in Spaichingen . The suggestion was not pursued further with the reference to the long journey time and the longer distance from Heuberg to the responsible district town of Spaichingen with two changes. In 1914, plans were discussed that included a connection from Dotternhausen via Rosenfeld to the Gäubahn in Sulz .

Along the route between 1944 and 1945 and Erzingen Wellendingen several works of were company desert and sub-camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof operated fuel from oil shale to win.

On September 26, 1971, the German Federal Railroad stopped passenger traffic between Schömberg and Rottweil due to a lack of profitability, officially shut down the section and dismantled it. The embankment and individual bridges, including the Primtalbrücke near Rottweil, are still there. Passenger traffic was taken over by the 7440 rail bus , which is now operated by the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary SüdbadenBus GmbH . The railway line itself has been operated by the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn since 1999 . Freight traffic between Rottweil and Rottweil Altstadt continued until January 1, 2002.

Freight trains still occasionally run between Balingen and Schömberg. A freight train runs an average of three times a week from Balingen to the Dotternhausen junction ( Holcim factory) and back. Cement is transported from Dotternhausen in block trains to Switzerland. In addition, a company transports precast concrete parts from the company's own rail connection at the end of the line in Schömberg and is therefore also committed to maintaining the line.

Passenger traffic was resumed in 2002 as a "bike-hiking shuttle". Railcars of the type RS1 of the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn run from spring to autumn on Sundays and public holidays between Tübingen or Balingen and Schömberg. The aim is to make the local recreation area of Upper Schischemtal and the Zollernalb more attractive for tourism.

• 

  Railway at Schömberg

• 

  An RS1 as a bike-hiking shuttle in Balingen

Buildings

Schischem Viaduct

Schischem Viaduct over the Schischemtalsperre

At Schömberg the railway line leads over the Schischem Viaduct at the Schischemtalsperre . The arch bridge has a total length of almost 83 meters and a height of around 19 meters. The field widths are 21-26-21 meters. Today the bridge is one of the landmarks of the Schischem Valley.

Primtalbrücke

Primtal Viaduct near Rottweil

Near Rottweil, the railway line ran over the Primtal Bridge, which was completed in 1928 and which is still almost completely preserved today and placed under monument protection, until it was closed in 1971. The bridge spans six arches (originally seven bridge openings) the Primtal and is 145 meters long and 15 meters high. The field width of the first six openings is 16.4 meters each. The seventh opening had to be removed due to the electrification of the Gäubahn that runs through here . Up until this point in time, an iron girder bridge spanned the tracks.

reactivation

In a feasibility study from 2004 on the planned Neckar-Alb regional light rail line, the reactivation of the line as a supplementary line S11 was examined. The study envisaged a new section at Dotternhausen and a complete re-routing between Schömberg and Rottweil. The eleven kilometer long new route should lead via Neukirch because the old route near Schörzingen is no longer available. In addition, Rottweil could be integrated from the north, making continuous trains to Lake Constance and Switzerland possible. The study envisaged two short double-track sections at Schömberg and Rottweil, electrification was not planned.

An alternative operating concept of the Pro RegioStadtbahn e. V. also planned to reactivate the line, but decided not to re-route it from Schömberg to Rottweil.

The Balingen - Rottweil route was no longer taken into account in the standardized assessment of the regional light rail system in 2010. It was also developed from the plans of the Pro RegioStadtbahn e. V. taken out.

Review by the state of Baden-Württemberg

As part of a review of the possible reactivation of 41 railway lines in Baden-Württemberg by the end of 2020, the line between Balingen and Schömberg will be analyzed again. The dismantled route between Schömberg and Rottweil aroused no interest in the state of Baden-Württemberg, despite the fact that an alternative route was kept free, which is why the district council of the Zollernalb district wants to make a second attempt for an express bus between Balingen and Rottweil. The municipal council of the city of Schömberg continues to welcome (as of October 2019) a reactivation of the section between Schömberg and Rottweil and keeps corresponding routes open for this. In November 2019, the district council of the Zollernalb district also spoke out in favor of maintaining the route until the state's decision is settled. Until then, the subsidy from the district is to be retained. The maintenance subsidy, which is paid by the district, commercial enterprises and neighboring communities, is currently 63,911 euros per year, of which the district pays 21,304 euros in two years. The Zollernalbkreis forecasts 280 freight trains between Balingen and Dotternhausen and also the Sunday and holiday traffic of the bike-hiking shuttle from May to October, which is used with an increasing tendency.

literature

• Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 256-258 .

Web links

• Homepage of the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn
• Forgotten tracks (route description with current pictures)
• Excerpt from the course book from 1944

Individual evidence

1. ^ Deutsche Reichsbahn: Handbook of the German Railway Lines. Berlin 1935, reprint Mainz 1984 ISBN 3-021426-20-4 No. 1911/57 + 1928/26
2. ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Transport Department: Construction of the Spaichingen-Nusplingen railway (Heubergbahn) and planned continuation to Ebingen (with petitions) . In: Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Main State Archive Stuttgart, archivist unit E 57 . E 57 Bü 21, 1908-1920.
3. ↑ Nils Horst: Dreams of the Heubergbahn. In: Black Forest Messenger . September 19, 2010.
4. ↑ The former railway line to Schömberg on rwbilder.de.
5. ↑ FBW transports by rail: 7800 tons of prefabricated parts from Schömberg to Switzerland. In: Zollern-Alb-Kurier. November 29, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2019 . 
6. ^ Regionalverband Neckar-Alb: Feasibility study RegionalStadtBahn Neckar-Alb. published January 2004 ( rvna.de PDF; 584 kB).
7. ↑ Regionalverband Neckar-Alb: Standardized assessment of the regional Stadtbahn Neckar-Alb , as of October 26, 2010 ( rvna.de PDF; 5.4 MB).
8. ↑ Information brochure Regional Stadtbahn 2016. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Pro RegioStadtbahn eV, September 19, 2016, formerly in the original ; accessed on October 23, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
9. ^ Südwest Presse: Bahn: Hechingen - Eyach line could be reactivated. April 30, 2019, accessed April 30, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Klaus Irion: Heneka, the head of the finance department, speaks of autonomous bus shuttle traffic to Hohenzollern Castle. In: Zollern-Alb-Kurier. October 26, 2019, accessed October 28, 2019 . 
11. ↑ Schwarzwälder Bote: Regional plan: Yes to changes. October 30, 2019
12. ↑ Zollern-Alb-Kurier: The district councils say yes to the railways - but the state has the last word. November 13, 2019